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John Cheever


USA flag (1912 - 1982)

John Cheever was an American novelist and short story writer, sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs" or "the Ovid of Ossining." His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the suburbs of Westchester, New York, and old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy, Massachusetts, where he was born.

His main themes include the duality of human nature: sometimes dramatized as the disparity between a character's decorous social persona and inner corruption, and sometimes as a conflict between two characters (often brothers) who embody the salient aspects of both--light and dark, flesh and spirit. Many of his works also express a nostalgia for a vanishing way of life, characterized by abiding cultural traditions and a profound sense of community, as opposed to the alienating nomadism of modern suburbia.
 

Genres: Literary Fiction
 
Series
Wapshot
   1. The Wapshot Chronicle (1957)
   2. The Wapshot Scandal (1964)
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Series contributed to
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Anthologies containing stories by John Cheever
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100 Years of the Best American Short Stories (2015)
(Best American Short Stories)
edited by
Lorrie Moore and Heidi Pitlor
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The Best American Short Stories of the Century (2008)
(Best American Short Stories)
edited by
Katrina Kenison and John Updike

More anthologies 


Awards
National Book Award for Fiction Best Book winner (1958) : The Wapshot Chronicle
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Best Book winner (1979) : The Stories of John Cheever


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